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Newsletter : 2fax0618.txt
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Signs Of The Times
By IsraelNationalNews.com
The Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway has been flooded with sign reading "Transfer Now."
No group or organization is signed on the posters, which also appear on many Jerusalem streets. It should be noted that a Ha'aretz poll conducted three months ago shows that 46% of the public supports some form of transfer of Arabs out of Israel and/or Yesha, while 21% of the electorate, according to a recent Ma'ariv poll, plan to vote for a party that supports transfer.
Bush to Announce Mideast Peace Plan Including Palestinian State
By Deborah Tate (VOA-Capitol Hill)
As President Bush prepares to announce as early as Tuesday a Middle East peace plan that is expected to include support for a Palestinian state, U.S. lawmakers are making their voices heard on the issue. With violence continuing in the region, bipartisan lawmakers say talk of Palestinian statehood is premature.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who met with House and Senate leaders during his visit to Washington last week, believes the time is not right to discuss Palestinian statehood. In Sharon's view, proposing a Palestinian state at a time when Palestinian suicide bombings continue against Israelis would, he believes, reward Palestinians for engaging in terrorism. Many in Congress see it that way, too.
According to news reports, Bush is nearing completion on a peace plan that would include a proposal for a provisional Palestinian state. Reports also say the plan would call on the Palestinian Authority to move forward with political reforms and security guarantees for Israel.
Although the plan also reportedly calls for a freeze on Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories, it is the Palestinian statehood proposal that is generating congressional reaction. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a Democrat from South Dakota, believes there can be no peace in the region until there is a change in Palestinian Authority leadership.
U.S. Criticizes Israel's Construction of Security Fence
By David Gollust (VOA-Washington)
As President Bush completes work on a new set of Middle East peace proposals, his spokesmen are criticizing Israel for its decision to wall off the West Bank with a security fence. They say any demarcation of a border with a Palestinian state should be left to negotiations.
Administration officials say Israel has a right to defend itself from attack, the stated purpose of the barrier being built between it and the West Bank. But, at the same time, they suggest the fence will be an added hardship for ordinary Palestinians needing to cross the line, and that it might pre-judge future peace negotiations.
At a Washington briefing, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said any drawing of a border needs to be left to negotiations and that a peace accord is the best way for Israel to have security.
"The basic framework that we come at is that you do have to do certain things to defend yourselves," he said. "You have to protect yourselves as best you can. But you also have to understand that each of those steps can have consequences. And second of all, that ultimately the only way to get real security for the Israelis is to get peace, and that means having a Palestinian entity, a partner on the other side, that can control security in that area in cooperation with Israel."
There have been virtually no leaks from the Bush administration about the content of the policy statement, the product of weeks of consultations with Israel and the Arab states and other concerned parties.
The Israeli newspaper "Yediot Aharonot," however, quoted Israeli sources in its Monday edition as saying the plan includes, along with the interim state idea, a call for a total freeze on Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza, including the so-called "natural growth" of existing settlements.
The Israeli paper also said the Bush plan will set no target dates for the two sides to meet their commitments, but will set conditions or benchmarks for progress, making recognition of an interim Palestinian government, for instance, dependent on governmental reforms.
Administration officials have made clear in advance the Bush message will not include proposals for settling the most intractable issues including refugees and the status of Jerusalem, but will instead be aimed at providing a path back to negotiations after more than 20 months of violence.
Mothers Cheer Their Sons' Deaths
By IsraelNationalNews.com
Do Palestinian mothers have the same feelings for their offspring as other mothers? Some of them apparently do not, according to the April issue of "Palestine al-Muslima." Facts gathered by the IDF Spokesperson's Office based on that magazine and other sources provide the following chilling picture:
Only hours before setting off on a massacre mission in the community of Dugit, young Hamas terrorist Mahmud Hasan Al-Abed, aged 24, appeared in a video with his mother in which he informed her of his plans to "kill and be killed." Her joy at hearing this news was surpassed only by that she felt the next day when she heard that he had in fact been killed, and had also killed two soldiers in the process. She celebrated the news by ululating and clapping her hands, according to her friends.
She was merely following in the footsteps of other mothers-of-martyr before her. Mariam Farhat, mother of 18-year-old Muhammad, was filmed giving him her blessing for an attack against Jews and saying she wished she had "100 sons like him." Muhammad in fact attacked the Atzmonah pre-military academy three months ago and murdered five boys his own age. His mother continued to celebrate after learning of his death. Similarly, the mother of 20-year-old Muhamad Khils had urged her son to carry out a "kill and be killed" attack in Netzarim, and later said that she had prayed to Allah to take her son as a martyr.
"Encountering no objection from the PA," the IDF spokesman concluded, "Hamas continues to glorify the "heroism" of the mothers who gleefully send their sons to their deaths."
